This invention relates to cow milking systems, particularly to cow milking parlors of the herring-bone type and improvements therein.
The basic herring-bone milking system known to the prior art is illustrated in the patent to Golay, U.S. Pat. No. 2,969,039. The herring-bone system (which is there called an echelon milking system) recognizes the psychological need of the cow to be in close communication with other members of the herd.
It provided a floor, along one side of which were mounted a plurality of feed boxes and along the opposite side of which were provided a series of splash guards which limited the open walking space between the feed boxes and the splash guard. At the far end of the area there was provided in the prior art a gate normally closed and disposed at an angle of about 30.degree. in relation to the line of splash guards.
A second gate at the entering end of the area was provided and was initially maintained open, such that a group of cows could be herded into the first, or entering, gate and would walk single file down the aisle thus created until the lead cow came to the closed exit gate. The feed box adjacent to that gate would have been filled to induce the lead cow to come to that position and the gate would urge the position of the cow to approximately a 30.degree. angle. The remaining cows would follow in and take their places at their respective feed boxes at about the same angle and would crowd together in touching relationship, thereby maintaining the herd relationship.
In the prior art arrangement each cow's udder was presented along the splash guard side of the area and there was provided a sunken floor below the floor on which the cows stood wherein a milking operator could move about to manipulate the mechanical milker and connect it to individual cows without having to push one cow away from the other, or stand between them. The cows's udders could also be washed from this position. After the milking operation was completed the exit gate would be opened and the cows would be driven out of the milking area.
This was a decided advantage over prior systems, allowing one man to handle an increased number of milking operations in the same length of time. Nevertheless, there still remained a need to further speed up the process and to more conveniently adjust the system to cow herds of differing sizes. Patents to Jacobs, et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,810,442 and Holm, U.S. Pat. No. 3,738,320 represent attempts in the prior art to speed up the process and to adjust for cow sizes. Vandenburg, U.S. Pat. No. 3,885,528 represents the prior art attempts to speed up the process.
The common problem with the prior art cow milking systems were that cows resisted rapid movement through the systems and often balked at management by the operator. Herds of short cows were still difficult for the operator to reach and handle properly. Attempted solutions for the problems tended to be overly elaborate, involving complicated machinery and electrical gadgetry that tended to make the system expensive to build and maintain, subject to breakdown, and difficult for untutored labor to cope with.
Rising costs of labor and material have been serious pressures on the dairy operator's profits. A long felt, standing need for improvements in the foregoing respects to cow milking systems has existed and yet remains to be satisfied.